Who’s Who in Green: Cameron Diaz
June 12, 2009 · Print This Article
Cameron Diaz was recently crowned ‘Queen of Green’ by Vogue Magazine, but she’s not looking to become some kind of superstar face of the environmental movement. The actress is just trying to live green for herself, sans fanfare, like a normal person. She drives a Prius, but seems annoyed at the kudos that celebs get for doing so. “It’s just a car,” she told Vogue. “It’s a choice people can make.”
In fact, attendees at one of former VP Al Gore’s slideshow training sessions were surprised to see Diaz among them, and even more surprised when she actively took part, asking questions and staying afterward to hang out with everybody else.
Diaz has been quietly supporting environmental causes for years. She joined Gore to announce the initiative Save Our Selves (SOS) – The Campaign for Climate in Crisis, and regularly shows up at environmental events such as the National Resources Defense Council’s 20th Anniversary Gala Celebration.
Most of the public learned about Diaz’s green leanings when she became host of the MTV reality program ‘Eco Trippin’, which followed her and a group of friends as they traveled the world to learn about the importance of protecting the environment. All travel from the show was offset with carbon credits, which Diaz also uses to offset her own personal travel.
From the July 2009 issue of Marie Claire:
Inspired by the annual TED conference that she’s attended—a kind of smarty-pants consortium dedicated to the spread of innovative ideas put forth by speakers like Bono, Al Gore, Jane Goodall, and Samantha Power—Diaz felt the urge to start a far-reaching conversation about the environment. “I was like, I’m going to get a camera, and I’m going to mobile-home it across the country, and I’m just going to find out what people are thinking. What would it take for the common person to become engaged?”—in the catastrophe that is the state of our natural resources. Most of all, she wants to help raise consciousness. “There’s a lot of great minds out there who are thinking about this,” she says, “who are coming up with solutions. Not to crash anybody’s party, but to actually make the party better.” She laughs. “Really, that’s what it’s about—that’s my participation in it.”
Diaz recently took a yearlong hiatus from acting to enjoy some personal time and get more involved with charity work. She also hitched a ride to the Oscars in a BMW Hydrogen 7, and went public with David Letterman about her “if it’s yellow, let it mellow” flushing practice.
When it comes down to it, Cameron Diaz is just a regular green gal who happens to have a very high-profile job.
Cameron Diaz’s Green Score: 20,455
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Give me a break. When you’ve been slaving away building a biodiesel plant hauling smelly grease, it’s very hard to look at a celebrity who uses their corporate jets to off-set their carbon (which really isn’t off-setting anything, the carbon is still there). Celebrities and their efforts to “go green” are ridiculous and highly over-rated. It’s super-easy to join a campaign and attend a green gala event in the latest designer gown. It’s much harder to turn your home into an entirely self-sustaining, zero energy input unit, or build your own reactor. Saying you’re “green” is easy, going “green” is entirely different.
When are you going to give people who start up green companies props with green scores?
Also, Priuses are highly over-rated. I drive a diesel that actually gets much better mileage. Where’s my green card?
Emily, we have covered many non-celebrities in our ‘Who’s Who in Green’ series. If you have any suggestions, you’re welcome to leave them in the comments.